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Since this is a Starcraft forum that I found from their D3 sub-forum, figured I'd reminisce about my college days of gaming and when I learned I suck at Starcraft and RTS games in general.
The year was 1998. I was accepted into a few colleges (zero reach, all safety, and was deciding between Cornell/CMU) and that spring break we went on the road-trip college tour and did sleeping bag weekend to see the campuses. I was assigned a CS major living in McGill and when we went up to his dorm to grab his roommate to go to dinner, he was of course, playing Starcraft. I had been a pc gamer already for a few years, having mostly pirated or circumvented the copy-right-protections of the day (remember the old code wheels from Monkey Island and Civiliztion manual etc) and had seen Starcraft on the cover of PC Gamer, but was more into Might & Magic VI at the time... but when I saw the game thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. Needless to say his roommate burned me a copy of a bunch of pirated pc games (back then CDRs cost $5!) and definitely affected my college decision.
So in the Fall of 1998, I was in a "engineering dorm" - basically everyone was a big nerd, and when we all expierenced the magical ethernet (back then dialup was the norm) and it was amazing. We played Rainbow Six and Quake on conference call, but a few of us started playing Starcraft when Brood War came out (could only play LAN >_>). But the thing was we only played 4v4cpu and it was always fun. We'd build our armies, then attack-move our way to victory. I was zerg so I'd mine the crap out of everything and destroy the most buildings so was usually at the top of the scoreboard. It was the next year when we decided to play against a rival dorm that I discovered the fact that.. I actually sucked at the game and the scoreboard meant absolutely nothing.
I moved onto FPS games like Counter-strike and Unreal Tournament, and didn't really enjoy Warcraft 3 (Not a fan of the hero game play) so I didn't actually buy Starcraft 2 until last year after selling some stuff in D3, mostly just watching matches on Youtube of tournaments. My build order is fine, but like most copper level players, just don't build enough, micro enough, or react fast enough. I still play the odd quick match against medium/hard CPUs and have a ball, but expect to finish the single player of HotS and then go watch some tournaments on twitch at work, and root for zerg!
 
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The realization that we are in fact TERRIBLE at Starcraft is possibly the most beautiful experience a human can have. Right up there with holding your new born child, climbing Mt. Everest, or seeing a solar eclipse. It's too bad that there are people in this world who will never get to experience that beauty. Looking at you MVP.
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rainbow six was the fuckin tits back in the day. damn i miss that game.
you definitely dont have to be awesome at the game to have fun at all though
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Your safety was Cornell/CMU? Man you are a talented individual 
Though I was 8, 2002 was when I really started playing those games, and I was like the only 8 year old in a sea of teenagers, but it brings back good memories :D
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On February 23 2013 06:13 XDJuicebox wrote:Your safety was Cornell/CMU? Man you are a talented individual
Heh, not safety safety like the local state uni, but not particularly "reach" like everyone's favorite Stanford. Was interesting going to a campus that had so many east asians (my HS class had 3/450) so it felt both awkward and not awkward at the same time.
On February 23 2013 02:09 QuanticHawk wrote:
rainbow six was the fuckin tits back in the day. damn i miss that game.
I remember our RA telling everyone to stop and meet in the hallway to discuss how we were going to breach the room and who was throwing flashes/nades. Needless to say the plan failed miserably and we probably shot each other in the chaos, was fun! Subsequent versions just didn't measure up. Or at least compare to counterstrike. De_dust!
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The old games really were the best. Red Alert, Total Annihilation, Fallout 1 and 2, Descent, Quake, Doom, Hexen, Commander Keen, the first Half-Life, Command and Conquer, Starcraft, the first Sim City and Sim tower!!! AND OF COURSE MYST and RIVEN. Just too many to name.
I think I missed out on a few other amazing RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, but those really were the golden days of PC Gaming. They were breaking so many barriers...so many masterpieces.
Today a lot of things are mainstream and some are a bit tired, but there are still some innovators.
What I find odd is that I would actually prefer all of those old games to the new ones. That's why I'm so happy that there are companies making some amazing, old-school RPGs.
Wasteland 2, Underrail, Project Eternity, and Planetary Annihilation - nearly all of them funded by Kickstarter, but finally giving the people who love quality RPGs a breath of fresh air...all we wanted was what came out in 1998, and is better than any other crappy modern RPG. Honestly I think the reason for this is just money...for big developers to make a lot of money they have to appeal to a certain type of "person". And that lowest common denominator degrades the quality of the game. Now everything is just stupidly epic, all the time, and you will rarely be required to read more than a paragraph on screen because its too hard.
So everybody goes for the big bucks, and leaves behind the people who want something more. Thankfully there are always niche markets. But I think what Kickstarter has shown is that there IS a devoted, depressed fanbase for quality games that will pay a lot of money, raising millions of dollars to fund a game. That's what makes me so happy...we can finally have our dream of a real Fallout sequel, not Bethesda's crappy Oblivion style RPGs (although Skyrim was definitely fun, after a few hours you realize that its very dull because there is no meaningful interaction with the questline or other characters; everything feels like an inconsequential errand, and no characters have any emotional depth, so its mostly just a slash fest with character upgrades. I could sum up Bethesda as "quantity over quality').
Well this issue makes me a bit passionate, but anyway I guess I couldn't help myself on your memory blog  .
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radscorpion, have you seen torment: tides of numenera?
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haha I remember rainbow six. I played that game so much in 2000 and 2001. Good times.
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On February 23 2013 07:54 radscorpion9 wrote:The old games really were the best. Red Alert, Total Annihilation, Fallout 1 and 2, Descent, Quake, Doom, Hexen, Commander Keen, the first Half-Life, Command and Conquer, Starcraft, the first Sim City and Sim tower!!! AND OF COURSE MYST and RIVEN. Just too many to name. I think I missed out on a few other amazing RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, but those really were the golden days of PC Gaming. They were breaking so many barriers...so many masterpieces. Today a lot of things are mainstream and some are a bit tired, but there are still some innovators. What I find odd is that I would actually prefer all of those old games to the new ones. That's why I'm so happy that there are companies making some amazing, old-school RPGs. Wasteland 2, Underrail, Project Eternity, and Planetary Annihilation - nearly all of them funded by Kickstarter, but finally giving the people who love quality RPGs a breath of fresh air...all we wanted was what came out in 1998, and is better than any other crappy modern RPG. Honestly I think the reason for this is just money...for big developers to make a lot of money they have to appeal to a certain type of "person". And that lowest common denominator degrades the quality of the game. Now everything is just stupidly epic, all the time, and you will rarely be required to read more than a paragraph on screen because its too hard. So everybody goes for the big bucks, and leaves behind the people who want something more. Thankfully there are always niche markets. But I think what Kickstarter has shown is that there IS a devoted, depressed fanbase for quality games that will pay a lot of money, raising millions of dollars to fund a game. That's what makes me so happy...we can finally have our dream of a real Fallout sequel, not Bethesda's crappy Oblivion style RPGs (although Skyrim was definitely fun, after a few hours you realize that its very dull because there is no meaningful interaction with the questline or other characters; everything feels like an inconsequential errand, and no characters have any emotional depth, so its mostly just a slash fest with character upgrades. I could sum up Bethesda as "quantity over quality'). Well this issue makes me a bit passionate, but anyway I guess I couldn't help myself on your memory blog .
Yea, the memories of those old games are always be on a pedestal because back then a game didn't need to have great graphics or perfect interface to be playable, and the bar wasn't so high like they are today. For example, I actually played Planescape Torment when it was released and still hold it as the best computer RPG I have played (slightly ahead of Baulder's Gate 1/2 & Fallout 1) but by today's standard, wouldn't cut it just on the fact that while the story is still awesome, the game engine animations, gameplay, etc are all too simple. Though as a mobile game I could see it selling today heh.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WZEFDYv.png)
I haven't paid much attention to the kickstarter games, but will definitely give stuff like Faster than Light, Bastion, etc my moneies. I'm with yah on the Oblivion style rpg first person crap rpgs. I think I tried to like Fallout 3 and Dragon Age 1 and 2, but just didn't summon the same feeling at all of the original D&D isometric games like Icewind Dale. Even my favorite rpg serier Final Fantasy, I no longer really look forward to the new games, much less shitty X-2, XIII-2 money grabs, or all this DLC crap I keep seeing being released.
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EPT
